About Me

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

In Response to Kurt b

I think Kurt b's comment on my post regarding Stalin and Hitler sums up what unfortunately has become the common wisdom. But, it really is special pleading and most people do not accept the argument with regards to other events. The fact that the USSR was hypocritical and engaged in subterfuge and deception counts against it rather than for it. Likewise the blatant honesty of the Nazis is a tiny redeeming factor in their favor. The anger at Nixon over Watergate had a lot more to do with the dishonesty surrounding the coverup than the actual break in. The fact that the USSR claimed to be acting in favor of lofty goals such as national equality while practicing ethnic cleansing and racialized discrimination makes these practices worse not better. Nobody ever denied the racist nature of Nazi Germany. Not even Holocaust deniers claimed that Hitler's regime was free of anti-semitic practices. Yet, there are a very large number of extremely powerful people in American academia who deny the existence of racially motivated state crimes by the Soviet Union.